Category: Miles

  1. Capital One has a 30% transfer bonus to JAL MileageBank through September 30, bringing the transfer ratio to 1,000:975.
  2. AA has new targeted loyalty point promotions for September on your account’s promo page. Reportedly 2,000 bonus Loyalty Points with two flights booked in premium economy, business class, or first class, and flown by the end of October is widely targeted.
  3. The Citi ThankYou Mastercard sent new targeted spend offers for September. We’ve seen:

    – 10% back on up to $800 in eligible in-store and online purchases monthly for September, October, November, and December

    Most things work for these except home improvement stores, wholesale clubs, and grocery stores.
  4. AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue released its September promo rewards. US cities:

    – Economy: Washington, Chicago New York, Detroit, Los Angeles
    – Premium Economy: New York, San Francisco
    – Business: Minneapolis

    Prices are 18,750 miles, 30,000 miles, and 45,000 miles respectively, and you’ve still got time to book before the devaluation on September 8.
  5. American Express Membership Rewards has a 30% transfer bonus to Hilton through October 14, making the ratio 1,000:2,600.

    Hilton’s program is currently a dumpster fire sitting on the deck of a sinking oil tanker, but there can be use cases where this makes sense.
  6. JetBlue debuted its BlueFirst cabin, and I guess to prove the K-shape economic recovery model, is also reducing pitch in economy from 32″ to 30″.
  7. Smart & Final grocery stores have $10 off of your next purchase with a $50 One4All Ultimate gift card through Tuesday. Smart & Final deals are transactional, so scaling is generally easy.

Happy Wednesday!

How it’s going: The Hilton Honors program.

  1. The Rove travel and shopping portal added Copa ConnectMiles as a 1:1 transfer partner today. There’s also a 40% transfer bonus through the end of September, pushing this month’s ratio to 10:14, or 1:1.4 if you don’t like aesthetically pleasing numerology.
  2. Giftcards.com has a few interesting promotions:

    – 10-22% back through Capital One Shopping
    – $5 off of physical Visas with promo ECO5 (works with portals)
    – $10 Kroger gift card with a $100 virtual Visa with promo KROGER10
    – 10% off of virtual Visas with promo code SD10OFF
    – 10% off through Slickdeals

    Mastercard gift cards are no longer eligible for portal cashback for the second time in the last 30 days.
  3. Bilt has a 25-100% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic FlyingClub today only, with the size of the bonus based on your Bilt status and your willingness to spend Itchy and Scratchy bucks, err, Bilt Cash.
  4. The Barclays Carnival Rewards Mastercard has a new 50,000 point sign-up bonus after $1,000 spend in 90 days. The vitals:

    – Points are worth 1 cent each for Carnival redemptions
    – 2x earn at grocery and restaurants
    – 1x status point per dollar

    I reached out to ask if you get priority onboard water slide access with the card, and the pressroom said “What?” so I guess I like those odds.

Happy Tuesday!

For some reason not all the waterslides need priority access.

  1. Air France / KLM FlyingBlue is devaluing mileage redemptions by introducing three fare classes for all cabins on September 8: Light, Standard, and Flex. Light means fewer or no checked bags, no refunds, seat assignments carry a fee, lounge access isn’t included. Standard is fairly close to the status quo, and Flex includes free changes and refunds. How is this a devaluation? Let’s look at low-level business class transatlantic award redemption costs:

    – Light: 60,000 miles
    – Standard: 75,000 miles
    – Flex: 110,000 miles

    So what you used to get for 60,000 miles will now cost you an extra +15,000 miles. It brings me absolutely no pleasure to report that I thought we’d see a devaluation when Tiffany Funk took over as the FlyingBlue leader. I also think we haven’t seen the last FlyingBlue devaluation in the coming year. Spend any FlyingBlue miles you have quickly.
  2. Kroger stores will have a 4x fuel points promotion Friday through Sunday on third party gift cards excluding Amazon and fuel retailer gift cards.

    Best Buy is still hard out there, but Best Buy also isn’t the only game in town.
  3. Meijer mPerks has a promotion for 10,000 points with $100+ in Mastercard gift cards through Tuesday, limit one per mPerks account.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  4. Citi Merchant Offers has a card linked offer for $50 off of $400+ in JetBlue spend through September 30.
  5. Bilt added Equinox redemptions for its Itchy and Scratchy Cash for classes and spa sessions. The redemption amount is tied directly to your Bilt Status. There are also coupons for new Equinox memberships which are, uhh, something.

    Coming soon: An Equinox credit card. Source? I made it up, but watch for it anyway.

Happy Thursday!

Equinox personal training session, courtesy of Bilt.

  1. The PenFed Pathfinder Visa is ending its $95 annual fee waiver for checking account holders on September 28. The card has been popular with churners even though ongoing spend is lame (even with its shenanigans) because points are worth about 0.85 cents for gift card redemptions, and those don’t even sell at face value. But, some churners had 10+ Pathfinder cards, why?

    There’s an annual $100 airline credit that works for effectively anything. That’s not going away, but soon you’ll be paying $95 for that $100 credit which sounds like a bad deal to me.
  2. CardPointers alerted the community that American Express Offers has finally implemented BEGIN; INSERT ...; COMMIT; in their code base, and as a result you’re no longer able to add the same offer to multiple cards.

    If you’re a CardPointers user, I’d look over those settings.
  3. The American Express Bonvoy Brilliant had another, mostly popup-free link surface. The heightened offer of 150,000 Bonvoy points and a $250 statement credit after $6,000 in spend in six months remains.
  4. Staples in store has fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction. A good way to clock these is reader Ryan’s http://officesupplygiftcards.com/.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  5. American Express Offers has an offer for a $250 statement credit with $2,000+ spend on Delta Airlines booked through AmEx Travel by August 31.
  6. Aeroplan has an award sale for “up to 25%” off of points bookings on Air Canada metal for travel booked by tomorrow and flown between September 8 and June 30, 2027.
  7. Cathay Pacific has a promotion for 800 miles back on every 5,000 Asia Miles spend on award flights in economy and premium economy, booked by August 27, and flown between September 10 and December 10. Registration is required.

Happy Monday friends!

AmEx puts their new SQL skills to use against churners.

The Thing

US Bank launched transfer partners on its Altitude Reserve and FlexPerks Travel Rewards Visa cards (my hidden gem FlexPerks American Express card sunsetted and became an Altitude Connect Mastercard earlier this year or it’d probably be there too). Initial partners are:

– AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue at 1:1
– Qantas Frequent Flyer at 1:1
– Ethiopian Sheba Rewards at 1:1
– Accor ALL at 2:1

They’re using a landing page at points.com for transfers, which means they’ll likely have access to many more transfer partners in the future.

The Impact

Because this is U.S. Bank where mediocrity is a way of life, this launch turns out to be … mediocre. Here’s some two-day-late Monday morning quarterbacking:

  • Accor ALL points are worth a fixed two eurocents each so that partner is relatively lame at 2:1. With current exchange rates, that’s effectively a fixed 1.15 cents per point
  • Ethiopian Sheba Rewards isn’t common, so let’s chat about it:

    – Ethiopian is part of Star Alliance
    – The Sheba Star Alliance Award chart is decidedly mediocre (to match U.S. Bank)
    – Redemptions on Ethiopian metal are zone based:
    Same zone: 15,000 miles in economy and 45,000 in business
    Two zone: 30,000 miles in economy and 60,000 in business
    Three zone: 🤷‍♀️
    – Ethiopian has 22 fifth-freedom routes (routes between two countries that aren’t Ethiopia). Pricing on these routes can be good
  • Because transfers are handled by points.com, I expect we’ll see more added rapidly after U.S. Bank figures itself out, but I really mean rapidly in U.S. Bank terms which means slowly in regular terms
  • Seats.aero already tracks Ethiopian miles, so the best redemptions are probably going to be rare thanks to the Tragedy of the Commons
  • Oh yeah, they have Qantas and FlyingBlue transfers too. Welcome to every other bank and FinTech on the planet I guess

The tl;dr: Some partners are better than none, but in this case not that much.

Happy Wednesday!

U.S. Bank transfer partner launch celebration swag.

  1. The Huntington Bank Business Voice credit card has an increased sign-up bonus of $700 after $5,000 spend in 90 days through September 14, but only in branch. The cards is relatively noteworthy for its quarterly 4% cash back on $7,000 spend in categories like grocery stores and gas. (Thanks to Mushu_Pork)
  2. AT&T and AA have a promotion for 20,000 AA miles with a phone number port-in, limit four. To maximize the promotion, you’ll need to keep AT&T service for three months. At $140 per month and a total of 80,000 miles, you’re effectively buying AAdvantage miles at 0.7 cents each.

    Mileage valuations for AA will probably range between 1.5 cents each to 8.0 cents each (for sites that share an acronym with Two Putting Greens), either way 0.7 cents is less.
  3. Meijer mPerks has 50,000 points with $500 in third party gift cards through August 11.
  4. Kroger stores have a promotion for 4x fuel points on third party gift cards other than Amazon and flexible fuel cards through August 11.

Happy Thursday friends!

The Huntington Bank Business Voice credit card, or MEAB mile valuations? Evidently both.

  1. The Citi ThankYou Mastercard, the let’s go with Messi of credit cards, sent new mid-month targeted offers for:

    – $50 statement credit with $750+ online spend
    – $75 statement credit with $1,000+ online spend

    The no-annual fee card remains unavailable for new applicants, and the likelihood of that changing is about the same of the US winning the World Cup this year. Go head and prove me wrong, Citi.
  2. Hyatt and Air Canada Aeroplan have a new partnership, you can link your accounts here. The tl;dr:

    – Aeroplan miles can be redeemed for Hyatt Category 1-4 certificates “starting at” 25,000 miles
    – 50,000 Hyatt points can be redeemed for a 30,000 point Aeroplan reward certificate

    – Aeroplan elites get a 20 night Globalist Hyatt status challenge
    – Aeroplan elites can convert Aeroplan to Hyatt at a 2:1 ratio
    – Hyatt elites will have an Aeroplan status challenge opportunity later this year

    – Hyatt elites get an annual CAD $20 Aeroplan flight credit, which is worth approximately one gallon of milk at current exchange rates
    – Hyatt points transfer to Aeroplan at a less bad, but still bad, 2:1 ratio

    On the positive front, that CAD $20 flight credit can be used to cover taxes on an award ticket, and on the uh-oh front, there’s now a backdoor from American Express to Hyatt.
  3. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 100% transfer bonus to IHG through July 30, bringing the transfer ratio from 1:1 to 1:2, which, like above, is less bad but still bad. On July 31, the bonus drops to 70% through the end of August.
  4. Singapore Airlines has discount business class awards for travel booked this month and flown next month between Los Angeles and Tokyo for 79,800 miles.

    There are lots of economy class discounts too, but uh, yeah.
  5. Meijer mPerks has 10,000 points with $100+ in One4All gift cards, limit 10,000 points per customer through Tuesday. I think this deal signals the end of the “mPerks is great” era, and brings us to the “mPerks is ok” era. Long live Nob Hill I guess?

Happy Thursday friends!

Don’t worry, science has already charted Meijer past and present.

  1. Chase Offers has a widely targeted offer for $100 off of $600+ on Chase Travel bookings through September 30.
  2. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. These work best when you buy in multiples of $600, and apparently based on recent observations, they also work best when you hide them behind other gift cards or inside the gift card rack🙄.

    These are also Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  3. Meijer stores have 50,000 MPerks points with a $500 gift card purchase through July 14. Unfortunately you’re limited to one per account, but fortunately, it turns out through some fluke of unnatural universal laws that it’s possible to have multiple accounts.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  4. Staples.com has fee-free $200 virtual Visa gift cards, limit four per transaction. (Yes, yes, I know it says five but here we are.)

    These are also Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards, RIP those US Bank ones though, amirite?
  5. Lufthansa First partner award space seems to be back, at least on a limited basis.
  6. Alaska Airlines may have reverted to its old behavior of allowing the combination of wallet funds and companion fares on the same ticket, re-allowing gamers to game. Reports suggest that this may have been a one-day reversion or maybe a staggered rollout though, I haven’t seen any reports of anyone doing this successfully.

Happy Monday!

Pouring something out for US Bank gift cards.